Buried Treasure: The Last of the Tilburg Haul
You might but probably don’t remember several months ago when, after returning from The Netherlands, I posted an entry about the CDs I picked up at this year’s Roadburn. Well, I thought it was worth mentioning now that I’ve finally managed to listen to all of them, and the very last one to make it into my player was Money for Soul by Baby Woodrose.
It was a record I hadn’t even intended to buy, but in order to pick up TAB4 by The Atomic Bitchwax in the new Tee Pee Records digipak, I needed to break a 10 Euro mark and no one could do it for me in the merch area except for the girl who was selling stuff for Saviours, and she wouldn’t unless I bought something. I told her I already have all the Saviours records, which isn’t a lie, and she said she was also selling a stack of CDs to her left.
Baby Woodrose was the name that stuck out to me most from what was there assembled. I knew I owned Blows Your Mind! — despite having just now to turn around and look at the CD rack to refresh my memory of what it was called. Mostly what I remembered about it was the anatomically-centric artwork, the songs themselves being long gone from my head. But, since it was five Euros and the only way I could buy that Bitchwax, I figured what the hell, and Money for Soul it was.
It sat for months on the shelf with several other incidental acquisitions, not necessarily unwanted but neither inducing any enthusiasm for listening. Just there. I finally grabbed it this weekend and took it with me in the car to listen, if for no other reason than because it would allow me to be done with it and the rest of what I picked up at Roadburn and maybe it would stop weighing on me. “You know, you still haven’t listened to that Baby Woodrose album,” the nagging voices in my head were saying.
Well, Baby Woodrose, who hail from Denmark and coincidentally have a new album out next week according to their MySpace, present a sound heavily indebted to American retro fuzz, particularly Dopes to Infinity-era Monster Magnet, some of Nebula‘s early work and even a little of The Brought Low. Guitarist, vocalist and main songwriter Lorenzo Woodrose has a swagger in his vocal delivery and cadence strongly reminiscent of Dave Wyndorf, and their ’60s-style acid pop rock is tightly structured and catchy without necessarily being memorable. After waiting so long to hear it, part of me thought maybe Money for Soul (released in 2003) would be this incredible record I’d kick myself in the ass for waiting on. Not really the case.
At least now I know. And I’m not saying it’s awful. For what it is, it’s not bad, and if Baby Woodrose made it Stateside and were touring with L.A.-based Floyd obsessives Bigelf, I’d probably? check it out to see if they could pull off “Carrie” live. But life-changing it’s not. As Orange Goblin says, “Some you win, some you lose.” I think this one was probably a tie.
Tags: Baby Woodrose, Record Shopping, Roadburn, The Netherlands
This was the first Baby Woodrose album I listened to and while I wasn’t blown away by it (Not like Dozer’s Beyound Collosal) I thought it was a very good album. I’ve listened to their other material and for me it didn’t hold a candle to this album. Maybe their new stuff may, I enjoyed what I heard on their Myspace page. I would recommend this album to anyone who wants to hear them for the first time.